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Working with men for almost 20 years now and one of the hardest lessons I have learned is that our internal defenses can be our biggest obstacle to overcome. I take men who are in extreme life crises and help them through the process of realigning their life, and it usually starts with getting through the thick protective shell of bravado that keeps other people out, and the little boy that is scared and anxious in.
Curiously what most people don’t learn until later in life is that the outer shell of attitude, and hardness, is often protecting an inner body of love, concern, caring, devotion, and hurts. Those who have the toughest exterior are often the softest on the inside, that’s why they are projecting themselves in this manner.
What I know is that a man who is working very hard at controlling what he wants the world to see, is almost always hiding a deep and abiding self-doubt, low self-image and most importantly fear. The near constant fear that some men live with that they don’t measure up, that they are not good enough, that they are not worthy, is what drives most of the “compensating” that we can easily spot, once we know what to look for.
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A man who is more concerned with the things in his life, than the people in his life, is scared of rejection by those same people and is acting out an “I’ll do it to them before they do it to me” defense mechanism. He’s generally scared to death that if he is open and honest with others about their meaning and value to him, they will use it in some way that will hurt him. I know this from personal experience.
I’ve done it myself – I’ve rejected an entire community because I did not want them to reject me first. Being a gay man who grew up in less accepting times, that was trauma that I was carrying with me, and after having the abuse of high school heaped upon me, I chose to avoid the gay community rather than embrace it. I didn’t want to be associated with the men that I wrongly believed to be the source of my hurts. It’s twisted logic. I embraced the narrative of the oppressors, and ran from the group that would welcome me.
As a young man I was much more concerned with perception, mine, yours, and what it took to control how you saw me. Today I am less concerned with whether or not you can hurt me. I’ve grown into a man who can see things relatively clearly. In my experience the one who is most defensive, is the one who is most hurt. I see that the abuser is probably also a victim who was abused in some way.
When I opened up about the pain I had felt in high school as a young gay man being taunted and teased – I saw a crack in his wall of seething anger.
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Today I work with men and women and when I see the hard shell exterior, I don’t meet it with the same attitude of confrontation. I try to find ways to crack that shell, to seek out a spot that is not so protected and get to the soft inside, for that is where the true work of empowerment and emotional healing can and must be done.
One student of mine came to me with an air and attitude that was off putting by design. He was a muscular, beefy man who was covered in tattoos of questionable quality. His demeanor was frankly rather scary, sitting there with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face it was obvious he wanted little I had to offer. Until I started to share my story with him.
When I opened up about the pain I had felt in high school as a young gay man being taunted and teased – I saw a crack in his wall of seething anger. It was as brief as a lightning flash, but it came across his face like a searchlight, and I caught it. I had struck a nerve.
Seeing that there was a way in, I started drilling for oil on the topic of high school hurts. Why was he so tough? Was he always this way? When did the defense of anger start? It took a bit of work but soon enough he opened up about feeling humiliated in the locker room and that’s all it took. “I vowed to never let anyone doubt me again.”
As we worked through what had happened, it became clearer that the pain and driving force for this man, was really minor and came about because he lived in fear. Fear that he wouldn’t be enough, fear that he would be hurt again – which he inevitably was because no one could get close to the real him, so he lived alone in his shell.
If you’re feeling alone, misunderstood, abandoned, it may be that you are trapped in the protective shell you have built up. The way out of feeling alone, misunderstood and abandoned is to available to all of us – once we are willing to let ourselves come out of our protective shell. The lobster will shed its shell when it becomes too tight – how’s yours?
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Photo Credit: Getty Images